


April

by Santi_C



Series: Calendar [2]
Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Intimacy, Light Angst, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 04:50:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18491701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Santi_C/pseuds/Santi_C
Summary: Harry POV based about now (mid-April) where lack of Jarry on-screen meets lack of Jarry off-screen, and how the boys are feeling about that.





	April

James walked into the living room to find Harry casually playing with himself in front of the telly.  


"Want me to sort that out for you?"  


Harry looked up at him with surprise, a small laugh leaving his lips. He took his hand out of his pants and gestured to say 'be my guest'.  


James got on the sofa next to him as Harry pressed mute on the remote, James taking him in hand and bending to put his mouth around him. Harry took his face and drew him up to his mouth instead to kiss him, the hunger of both men intense from the moment their lips met. Harry pulled away, his eyes suddenly stinging, his throat caught.  


"What's wrong?" asked James.  


"Nothing," replied Harry, already trying to wipe away his tears before they fell.  


Not believing him for a moment, James persisted. "Did I... Have I done something wrong?"  


"No," Harry said, getting up, just wanting to not feel so vulnerable as he did now. He left James confused on the sofa as he dragged himself upstairs to their bedroom. Before he even made it there, he heard the front door slam, the ground shaking a little and releasing his tears.

-

Harry sat on the bed, tissues having accumulated around him. He'd stopped crying now, there was only so much one could. He and James hadn't really been intimate in weeks, the court case coming first, then James' poisoning, now Romeo's incarceration. James hadn't been sleeping, his patience invariably thin, his receptiveness to Harry's attempts to relax him wildly inconsistent. For all the times Harry had been able to be that one person who could calm him, remind him he was just one man who couldn't save the world of its ills alone, he felt increasingly impotent. He knew, for James, getting some semblance of justice over his father was important to him, he knew he was going out of his mind trying to keep his son from years in prison and all he wanted was to support him in that. 

Yet Lily had been a human casualty in all of this, and they'd not been able to properly discuss that. He'd agonised over whether or when to see his own father and found the eventual meeting confusing and painful, despite the hugs, the words that seemed kind on the surface. Because James was so worried about his son, Harry hadn't wanted to add to his burden by unloading all of his daddy issues onto him but James was probably the only person that could help him make sense of what he was feeling. And yet part of what was making him feel so vulnerable, so unsure and - dare he admit it - alone, was that James was so tied up in his own considerable problems that they'd not been a team of late. James hadn't been there for Harry and he wouldn't let Harry be there for him. Harry existed in that house but did he feel at home? No.

And he hated that, he hated feeling that way. It wasn't all the time but it was increasingly the case. It made him feel guilty and as a result, even less likely to bring stuff up with James. They'd always been so open with each other, even when they hadn't. This was a bit of a new feeling and it was crushing. It had started to eat away at Harry and he knew he would have to do something to instigate the claw-back. But he'd messed it up just now, in a situation where they could have been intimate once again, where there'd been a little break in the clouds and James was not fixating over something else. It was difficult to admit it to himself, even, but he'd felt overwhelmed by his attention; in that moment, he realised how much he'd missed him, missed them being close, even though it's something he thought about all the time and knew already. It hit him like a train and there had been a throbbing in his chest, pain emanating from it like a stab wound. He had missed James all these weeks and yet here he was, wanting him. Harry for some reason couldn't help the emotions from filling his chest, rising up his neck and face, seeping out. And now James was mad at him, or frustrated, or both, he couldn't tell. 

-

Almost an hour had gone by when he heard the latch go. He didn't know if it was James or not, and he didn't know if he wanted it to be. His boyfriend was erratic of late, he couldn't tell which mood he'd find him in, how reasonable he'd be. But he couldn't hide away upstairs. He came down to see who'd returned and it was both who he'd wanted and who he'd feared.  


“You okay?” came the question, both concerned and a little angry.  


Harry couldn't speak, he opened his mouth but no words came out. He felt ready to cry all over again. He pressed his palms together in front of his face, an apology but also a mask.  


“I wish you'd tell me what's wrong,” James said, softly now.  


Harry steadied himself. He needed to get his words out, not simper like a child. “You used to know,” he said. He hoped his boyfriend knew him well enough to know this was not a guilt trip but rather a rare instance of being earnest.  


James sucked on his bottom lip. “I realise my focus has been elsewhere. I thought... I thought once Mac was taken care of, we'd have the run of the place. I didn't quite envisage him trying to kill me and then someone framing my son for his murder.”  


“I know,” Harry replied, his sympathetic tone unmistakeable. “I just thought as a couple, you know, we'd fight these things together. We'd tackle things together. But then I realised that ever since I've known you, something that fascinated me about you was that single-mindedness, that commitment to a cause. And you've always taken a lot of that on yourself. I don't want you to change that about yourself, but I do want to be there with you. I don't wanna feel like I'm on the outside looking in. I've felt like that all my life, and you were the one person who made me feel differently. What's changed? Is it different now that I'm here? That I'm yours?”  


“No.” James glanced down, a few yards into the distance, and then back up again at Harry. “I guess I don't really know how to... when there's something I need to fix, I've never had people in my life really... _being_ there. I've had total freedom to 'obsess', as my mother calls it. I suppose I haven't really adjusted yet, I don't know how one does that.”  


“But you do want me here?”  


“Harry... I've never not wanted you here.”  


“I don't expect to be the centre of attention, not with everything going on. But...”  


“You had my attention earlier and you rejected me.”  


“I didn't. I couldn't. I just, felt so emotional because we haven't really spent time together. You get to bed when I'm already asleep, or when you're too exhausted to even talk. And suddenly, you were interested. I didn't really understand it.”  


“I just think I thought that everything was okay in one area of my life, because I felt so happy we were together that I allowed everything else to take over and I ended up... you know, overlooking us. And I felt it too, I realised on the sofa before that it had been so long, that clearly I hadn't given us the attention needed. But I was 100% present in the moment and I wanted to show you that I was completely with you right then. And then you stopped it.”  


“I didn't want to. I'm sorry that I made you feel... discarded. I know how that would have felt. I just couldn't help it. I wanted us to go back to how it was before, when I felt like the centre of your universe, and then I feel really selfish for even thinking like that.”  


“Well, don't. It's perfectly legitimate. I spent so long trying to be with you and now that I am, the universe has decided to throw everything it can at me to derail things. I regret that I haven't been able to focus more on me and you. Nothing makes me happier than you, and I've not shown it of late. I know that. I've spent most my waking hours trying to fix the things that have been going wrong, to the point that I've been breaking the one thing that was going right. Ironic, really.”  


“I'm not blaming you, at all. I just know that if we spent more time together, if we factored each other in more, not only would we be better but everything would go better, feel better.”  


“You're right, you know.” James took a few steps to where Harry was and gently rested his chin on his head. “My clever one.”  


Harry put his arms around James. He felt as emotional as before but stronger now, not on the verge of all his emotion escaping so visibly. He breathed deeply through his nostrils, taking in James' scent, comforted by his pheromones, his warmth. He felt James kiss the top of his head before pulling back a little to look at him.  


“I know it's barely teatime but shall we go upstairs for a bit? You can lay on my chest,” he suggested.  


Harry smiled, blushing a little because he knew James knew he liked that. “Yeah, okay,” his grin widening as James nipped the back of his neck with his teeth.

-

Harry couldn't take his eyes off James as he lay over him, his torso still but his hips working away. Their gaze was fixed on the other, their eyes saying what their mouths couldn't. James occasionally glanced down to look at Harry's dick, flat against his stomach and soon to cover them both in cum. Harry enjoyed watching him get excited by it as he always had, whilst their prolonged eye-contact kept the emotional connection stronger than the physical one, and the bar was raised high. Harry started to command James, tell him what he wanted and how good it felt which always tipped him over the edge. He stroked himself as James' thrusts got deeper, his moans got louder and Harry's commands along with them. Coming together wasn't the easiest thing to achieve and often not their aim as they liked to keep things going for the other in different ways but this time, it was magic. The orgasms built up in them at the same time and suddenly, they were both soaked, shaking with pleasure and, uncharacteristically, holding each other well past the point of climax. James kissed Harry, forceful and wet, his lips clasping round the side of Harry's mouth and cheek.

Harry hadn't shared any of the things he'd thought about in their bedroom earlier but this was the door opening to all of that. When they slept together, made love, whatever people wanted to call it, they were open books long after the heart rates returned to normal. They would talk about everything that worried them, upset them, made them wonder, and Harry knew that everything that was impossible a few hours ago was going to be the normal state of play resumed. They would talk now, he knew that, but they were defenceless to their biology in this moment and both lulled into a sweaty slumber tangled up in the sheets.


End file.
